Revision as of 07:12, 28 August 2012

1.00

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Description

Description:

Returns the side of a unit or object.
Once dead, a unit will be on the civilian side. Query the side of the Group to get a reliable result.
When used in conjunction with a format statement (hint format["%1",side player]), the returned strings are: "WEST", "EAST", "GUER", "CIV", "LOGIC", "ENEMY" (eg: renegades), "AMBIENT LIFE" or "UNKNOWN".

Notes

Notes

In ArmA, the following objects are on side civilian: dead bodies and vehicles, empty vehicles, all mission editor placed objects (that do not have an inherit side), all objects with interactive components such as ladders and doors, man made structures such as buildings (including classless wrp placed objects), docks, high tension powerlines, see-saws, large rubbish bins, fountains. Basically if an object uses a non-simple damage or physics simulation it is likely to be on the civilian side.

In OFP v1.96, the side return value for a vehicle is based on the side of it's commander, then gunner, then driver, then cargo. It will retain it's side value until it is either empty, or a unit of another side takes over in a equal or higher role, irrespective of the side of other units still on board. This can be used to simulate friendly fire, as a vehicle can be made to appear to be an enemy even though all units on board are actually friendly.

As CEEB says above, in ArmA2, side for a vehicle often depends on who the command or driver is, for example, A KA52, piloted by a USMC guy will have side WEST. For an accurate result of what 'where the vehicle was made', use faction. This ignores the pilot/commander, so in my example here, this KA52 will always return faction "RU". Note that faction returns different values to side though.

Side values for ambient life (animals) are bizarre. side _unit returns "CIV", but playerSide returns "AMBIENT LIFE" when the player is an animal. In that case, playerSide == side player returns false!
Fortunately, you can easily check if a unit is an animal with _unit isKindOf "ANIMAL"'